1. Technical Field
The inventions relate to optical wavelength-selective switches, systems using an optical wavelength-selective switch, and methods of operating such switches and systems.
2. Related Art
This section introduces aspects that may be helpful to facilitating a better understanding of the inventions. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.
A 1×N optical wavelength-selective switch (OWSS) is an optical switch that routes light received at a first optical port of the 1×N OWSS to N second optical ports of the 1×N OWSS based on the wavelength of the received light. If the light signal received at the first optical port of the 1×N OWSS includes light on multiple wavelength-channels, the 1×N OWSS may route light received on different ones of the wavelength-channels to different ones of the N second optical ports of the 1×N OWSS. A 1×N OWSS may be reconfigurable so that the routings of the various wavelength-channels of light received at the first optical port to the N second optical ports of the 1×N OWSS may have different mappings.
Some 1×N OWSSes may be operated in a reverse direction. In such a 1×N OWSS, light received at the N second optical ports of the 1×N OWSS can be wavelength-multiplexed by the 1×N OWSS into a light beam output at the first optical port of the 1×N OWSS.
A colorless 1×N OWSS is a 1×N OWSS configurable to transmit light on any wavelength-channel received at the first optical port of the 1×N OWSS to any of the N second optical ports of the 1×N OWSS. Here, the wavelength-channels are disjoint and belong to a preselected sequence for the 1×N OWSS.